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  　Warren nodded. "I'm afraid so. Except a few—mostly older people; they don't understand it and aren't too interested, but most everyone else is. It's become the people's passion. Children start playing it in the streets almost as soon as they can walk."

  　Verna eyed a side street and checked behind, the way they had come. “What kind of game is this?"

  　Warren shrugged. "I've never been to an official game, yet; I spend most of my time down in the vaults, but I've delved into the subject a bit. I've always been interested in games and how they fit into the structure of different cultures. I've studied ancient peoples and their games, but this gives me the chance to observe a living game for myself, so I've read up on it and made inquires.

  　"Ja'La is played by two teams on a square Ja'La field marked out with grids. In each corner is a goal, two for each team. The teams try to put the 'broc'—a heavy, leather-covered ball a little 【创建和谐家园】aller than a man's head—in one of their opponents' goals. If they do, then they get a point, and the other team gets to pick a grid square from which they begin their turn at attack.

  　"I don't understand the strategy, it gets complex, but five-year-olds seem to be able to grasp it in no time."

  　"Probably because they want to play, and you don't." Verna untied her shawl and flapped the ends, trying to cool her neck. "What's so interesting about it that everyone would want to go crowd together in the sun to see it."

  　"I guess it takes them away from their toil for a day of festivity. It gives them an excuse to cheer and scream, and to drink and celebrate if their team wins, or to drink and console one another if their team loses. Everyone gets quite worked up over it. More worked up than they should."

  　Verna thought it over a moment as she felt a refreshing breeze cool her neck. "Well, I guess that sounds harmless."

  　Warren glanced over out of the corner of his eye. "It's a bloody game."

  　"Bloody?"

  　Warren sidestepped a pile of dung. "The ball is heavy and the rules loose. The men who play Ja'La are savage. While they must of course be adept at handling the broc, they're selected mostly because of their brawn and their brutal aggressiveness. Not many a game goes by without at least some teeth getting knocked out, or a bone broken. It isn't rare for a neck to get broken, either."

  　Verna stared incredulously. "And people like to watch that?"

  　Warren grunted a humorless confirmation. "From what the guards tell me, the crowd gets ugly if there isn't blood, because they think it means their team isn't "Ting hard enough."

  　Verna shook her head. "Well, It doesn't sound like anything I would enjoy watching."

  　"That isn't the worst of it." Warren kept his eyes ahead as he strode along the shadowed street. To the sides, shutters so faded it was hard to tell they had ever been painted stood closed over narrow windows. "The losing team is brought out onto the field when the game is over, and each is flogged. One lash with big leather whip for each point scored against them, administered by the winning team. And the rivalry between teams is bitter; it isn't unheard of for men to die from the flogging."

  　Verna walked in stunned silence as they turned a corner. "The people stay for this flogging?"

  　"I think that's what they go for. The entire crowd supporting the winning team counts out the number of lashes as they're laid on. Emotions run pretty high. People get really worked up over Ja'La. Sometimes there are riots. Even with ten thousand troops trying to keep order, things can get out of hand. The players sometimes start the brawl. The men who play Ja'La are brutes."

  　"People really like rooting for a team of brutes?"

  　"The players are heroes. Ja'La players virtually have the run of the city, and can do no wrong. Rules and laws rarely apply to Ja'La players. Crowds of women follow the players around, and after a game there's usually a team orgy. Women fight over who will be with a Ja'La player. The spree goes on for days. To have been with a player is an honor of the highest order, and is so highly contested that bragging rights require witnesses."

  　"Why?" was all she could think to say.

  　Warren threw up his hands. "You're a woman; you tell me! When I've been the first in three thousand years to solve a prophecy, I've never had a woman throw her arms around my neck, or want to lick the blood off my back."

  　"They do that?"

  　"Fight over it. If he's pleased with her tongue, he might pick her. I hear the players are pretty arrogant, and like to make the eager women earn the honor of being under him."

  　Verna looked over and saw that Warren's face was glowing red. "They even want to be with the losing players?"

  　"It's irrelevant. He's a Ja'La player: a hero. The more brutal, the better. The ones who have killed an opponent with a Ja'La ball are renowned, and are most sought after by the women. People name babies after them. I just don't understand it."

  　"You're just seeing a 【创建和谐家园】all sampling of people, Warren. If you were to go into the city instead of spending all of your time down in the vaults, women would want to be with you, too."

  　He tapped his bare neck. "They would if I still had a collar, because they would see the palace's gold around my neck, that's all; they wouldn't want to be with me because of who I am."

  　Verna pursed her lips. "Some people are attracted by power. When you have no power yourself, it can be very seductive. That's just the way life is."

  　"Life," he repeated with a sour grunt. "Ja'La is what everyone calls it, but its full name is Ja'La dh Jin—the Game of Life, in the old tongue of the emperor's homeland of Altur'Rang, but everyone simply calls it Ja'La: the Game."

  　"What does 'Altur'Rang' mean?"

  　"'Altur'Rang' is from their old tongue, too. It doesn't translate well, but it means, approximately, 'the Creator's chosen,' or 'destiny's people,' something like that. Why?"

  　"The New World is split by a mountain range called the Rang'Shada. It sounds like the same language."

  　Warren nodded. "A shada is an armored war gauntlet with spikes. Rang'Shada would roughly mean 'war fist of the chosen.' "

  　"A name from the old war, I guess. Spikes would certainly apply to those mountains." Verna's head was still spinning with Warren's story. "I can't believe this game is allowed."

  　"Allowed? It's encouraged. The emperor has his own personal Ja'La team. It was announced this morning that when he comes for his visit, he's going to bring his team to play Tanimura's top team. Quite an honor, from what I gather, as everyone is beside themselves with excitement at the prospect." Warren glanced around, and then turned back to her again. "The emperor's team doesn't get flogged if they lose."

  　She lifted an eyebrow. "The privilege of the mighty?"

  　"Not exactly," Warren said. "If they lose, they get beheaded."

  　Verna's hands dropped away from the points of her shawl. "Why would such a game be encouraged by the emperor?"

  　Warren 【创建和谐家园】iled a private 【创建和谐家园】ile. "I don't know, Verna, but I have my theories."

  　"Such as?"

  　"Well, if you have conquered a land, what problems do you suppose might present themselves?"

  　"You mean insurrection?"

  　Warren brushed back a lock of his curly blond hair. ' Turmoil, protests, civil unrest, riots, and yes, insurrection. Do you remember when King Gregory ruled?"

  　Verna nodded as she watched an old woman far up a side street draping wet clothes over a balcony railing. It was the only person she had see in the last hour. "What happened to him?"

  　“Not long after you left, the Imperial Order took over and that was the last we heard of him. The king was well thought of, and Tanimura prospered, along with the other cities under his rule in the north. Since then, times have become hard for the people. The emperor allowed corruption to flourish and at the same time ignored important matters of commerce and justice. All those people you've seen living in squalor are refugees come to Tanimura from 【创建和谐家园】aller towns, villages, and cities that Were sacked."

  　"They seem a quiet and content lot for refuges."

  　An eyebrow lifted over a blue eye. "Ja'La."

  　"What do you mean?"

  　"They have little hope of a better life under the Imperial Order. The one thing they can have hope for, dream about, is to become a Ja'La player.

  　"The players are selected because of their talent at the game, not because they have rank or power. The family of a player need never want for anything again; he can provide for them—in abundance. Parents encourage their children to play Ja'La, hoping they will become paid players. 【创建和谐家园】 teams, classed by age group,

  　start with five-year-olds. Anyone, no matter their background, can become a paid Ja'La player. Players have even come from the ranks of the emperor's slaves.

  　"But that still doesn't explain the passion for it."

  　"Everyone is part of the Imperial Order now. No devotion to one's former land is allowed. Ja'La lets people be devoted to something, to their neighbors, to their city, through their team. The emperor paid to have the Ja'La field built—a gift to the people. The people are distracted from the conditions of their lives, over which they have no control, and into an outlet that doesn't threaten the emperor."

  　Verna flapped the ends of her shawl again. "I don't think your theory casts a shadow, Warren. From a young age, children like to play games. They do it all day. People have always played games. When they get older, they have contests with the bow, with horses, with dice. It's part of human nature to play at games."

  　"This way." Warren caught her sleeve and pointed with a thumb, turning her down a narrow alley. "And the emperor is channeling that tendency into something more than natural. He need not worry about their minds wandering to thoughts of their freedom, or even simple matters of justice. Their passion, now, is Ja'La. Their minds are dulled to everything else.

  　"Instead of wondering why the emperor is coming, and what it will mean for their lives, everyone is aflutter because of Ja'La."

  　Verna felt her stomach lurch. She had been wondering just why the emperot was coming. There had to be a reason for him to come all this way, and she didn't think it was just to watch his team play Ja'La. He wanted something.

  　"Aren't the people worried about defeating such a powerful man, or his team, anyway?"

  　"The emperor's team is very good, I'm told, but they don't have any special privilege or advantage. The emperor takes no affront at his team losing, except, of course with his players. If an opponent bests them, the emperor will acknowledge their skill and heartily congratulate them and their city. People long for that honor— to best the emperor's renowned team."

  　"I've been back for a couple months, and I've never seen the city empty out for this game before."

  　"The season just started. Official games are only allowed to be played in the the Ja'La season."

  　"That doesn't fit with your theory, then. If the game is a distraction from more important matters of life, why not let them play it all the time?"

  　Warren gave her a 【创建和谐家园】ug 【创建和谐家园】ile. "Anticipation makes the fervor stronger. The prospects for the upcoming season are talked about endlessly. By the time the season finally arrives the people are worked up into a fever pitch, like young lovers returned to the embrace after an absence—their minds are dull to anything else. If the game went on all the time, the ardor might cool."

  　Warren had obviously thought long and hard on his theory. She didn't think she believed in it, but he seemed to have an answer for everything, so she changed the subject.

  　"Where did you hear this, about him bringing his team?"

  　"Master Finch."

  　"Warren, 1 sent you to the stables to find out about those horses, not to gab about Ja'La."

  　"Master Finch isabig Ja'La enthusiast and was all excited about today's opening game, soIlelhim ramble on about it so I could find out what you wanted to know."

  　"And did you?"

  　They came to an abrupt halt, looking up at the sign carved with a headstone, shovel, and the names BENSTENT and SPROUL.

  　"Yes. Between telling me how many lashes the other team was going to get, and telling me how to make money betting on the outcome, he told me that the missing horses have been gone for quite a time."

  　"Since right after winter solstice, I'd bet."

  　Warren shielded his eyes with a hand as he peered into the window. "You'd win the bet. Four of his strongest horses, but full tack for only two, are gone. He's still searching for the horses, and swears he'll find them, but he thinks the tack was stolen."

  　From behind the door in the back of the dark room, she could hear the sound of a file on steel.

  　Warren took his hand from his face and checked the street. "Sounds like there's someone here who isn't a Ja'La enthusiast."

  　"Good." Verna tied the shawl under her chin and then pulled open the door. "Let's go hear what this gravedigger has to say."

  　CHAPTER 25

  　Only the 【创建和谐家园】all, street-side window coated with ancient layers of dirt, and an open door in the back, lit the dim, dusty room, but it was enough to see a path through the cluttered mounds of sloppy rolls of winding sheets, rickety workbenches, and simple coffins. A few rusty saws and planes hung on one wall, and a disorderly stack of pine planks leaned against another.

  　While people of means frequented undertakers who provided guidance in the selection of ornate, expensive coffins for their loved ones, people with precious little money could afford no more than the services of simple gravediggers who supplied a plain box and a hole to put it in. While the departed loved ones of those who came to gravediggers were no less precious to them, they had to worry about feeding the living. Their memories of the deceased, however, were no less gilded.

  　Verna and Warren paused at the doorway out into a tiny pit of a work yard, its borders steep and high with lumber stacked upright against a fence to the back and stuccoed buildings at each side. In the center, with his back to them, a gangly, barefoot man in tattered clothes stood facing away from them as he filed the blades of his shovels.

  　"My condolences on the loss of your loved one," he said in a gravelly but surprisingly sincere voice. He resumed drawing the file against the steel. "Child, or 【创建和谐家园】?"

  　"Neither," Verna said.

  　The hollow-cheeked man glanced back over his shoulder. He wore no beard, but looked as if his efforts at shaving were rare enough that he was close to crossing the line. "In between, then? If you'll tell me the size of the departed, I can work a box to fit."

  　Verna clasped her hands. "We've no one to bury. We're here to ask you some questions."

  　He quieted his hands and turned around fully to look them up and down. "Well, I can see that you can afford more than me."

  　"You aren't interested in Ja'La," Warren asked.

  　The man's droopy eyes came a little more alert as he took another look at Warren's violet robes.”Folks don't fancy the likes of me around at festive occasions. Spoils their good time to look on my face, like it were the face of death itself walking among 'em. Aren't shy about telling me I'm not welcome, either. But they come by when they've need of me. They come, then, and act like they never turned their eyes away before. I could let 'em go pay for a fancy box what the dead won't see, but they can't afford it, and their coin don't do me no good if I grudge 'em their fears."

  　"Which are you," Verna asked, "Master Benstent, or Sproul?"

  　His flaccid eyelids bunched into creases as his eyes turned to up her. "I'm Milton Sproul."

  　"And Master Benstent? Is he about, too?"

  　"Ham's not here. What's this about?"

  　Verna bowed her mouth in a nonchalant expression. "We're from the palace, and wanted to ask about a tally we were sent. We just need to be sure it's correct, and everything is in order."

  　The bony man turned back to his shovel and stroked the file across the edge. "Tally's correct. We'd not cheat the Sisters."

  　"Of course we aren't suggesting any such thing, it's just that we can't find any record of who it was you buried. We just need to verify the deceased, and then we can authorize payment."

  　"Don't know. Ham done the work and made out the tally. He's an honest man. He wouldn't cheat a thief to get back what was stole from him. He made out the tally and told me to send it over, that's all I know."

  　"I see." Verna shrugged. "Then I guess we'll need to see Master Benstent in order to clear this up. Where can we find him?"

  　Sproul took another stroke with his file. "Don't know. Ham was getting on in years. Said he wanted to spend what little time was left to him being with his daughter and grandchildren. He left to be with them. They live downcountry somewheres." He circled his file in the air. "Left his half of the place, such, as it is, to me. Left me his half of the work, too. Guess I' 11 have to take on a younger man to do the digging; I'm getting old myself."

  　"But you must know where he went, and about this tally."

  　"Said I don't. He packed up all his things, not that that was much, and bought himself a donkey for the journey, so I reckon it must be a goodly distance." He pointed his file over his shoulder toward the south. "Like I said, downcountry,